Penn State women’s soccer is in unfamiliar territory right now.

It started the season as the No. 11 in the country and went up as high as No. 8 two weeks ago. Now, in the blink of an eye, the Nittany Lions are no longer ranked after Tuesday’s poll and have to search for answers as they look to rebound.

Penn State’s struggles started two weeks ago when it let Nebraska score in the final minute to tie 1-1. After that, it blew a one-goal lead against Wisconsin, leading to a 2-1 loss and the first loss at Jeffrey Field. It dropped 10 spots in the rankings after this stretch of games.

Last week, the Nittany Lions went on the road for the first time in Big Ten play to take on Illinois and Northwestern. Their winless streak went up to three games after losing to Illinois before it ended last Sunday with a much-needed win over Northwestern.

Despite the win, it wasn’t enough to keep Penn State ranked, as it came up eight votes short. However, Penn State head coach Erica Dambach said that dropping out of the rankings has motivated the team to prove that they are better than what they have shown in the last two weeks.

“I think that the team has a fire underneath them right now, that fire probably started after the Wisconsin match, and I think that’s been burning pretty strongly,” Dambach said. “We’ve created plenty to win all of these games and limited our opponent well enough, but you flat out just have to win the game. I think that’s a lot of what we’re talking about within the team right now. What is the winning mentality? What are the behaviors that we need to see consistently to win these games?”

Now, the Nittany Lions are in the middle of a six-day break before they finish their three-game road trip against Rutgers on Saturday. Despite the Scarlet Knights being 3-3-4 this season, they are undefeated at home, winning three matches and three ties. Dambach talked about what makes Rutgers really good.

“Rutgers is extremely organized defensively. They just don’t give up a whole lot and never have,” Dambach said. “Our defending is going to have to be good, or we’re going to be chasing. I think we felt better about our defending in the second half of Northwestern than we did in the first half, and we’ve got to make sure we continue to tighten that up.”

There are six regular-season matches left for the Nittany Lions before the Big Ten tournament begins toward the end of October. With a record of 2-2-1, they are sitting 8th in the Big Ten standings, with seven points, and tied with four other teams. They are six points behind first-place UCLA, which leads the conference with 13 points.

Penn State has a great opportunity to close out the regular season on a high note, as it will only face one more ranked opponent, Ohio State. That gives it a chance to still host a game of the NCAA Tournament at Jeffrey Field. Despite loving the opportunity to host, Dambach knows that the goal right now is to take it one game at a time.

“That’s always a goal. You want to host, but I think we’ve got to be careful with anything past Rutgers,” Dambach said. “I think that can sneak up and get you real quick because our games come back-to-back to back-to-back, and there’s always another top opponent that you’ve got to play. So, we have to keep our team focused on Rutgers right now.”